Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[raffy]

Barry recently successfully built a humongous initrd for net-booting Puppy 2.16, see this developer thread and the forum discussion that begins here.

(Edit: See the link in the next post below for Barry's instructions about creating the humongous initrd. )

Some questions:

- what tweaks would you do to enable the netboot in a 128-MB RAM client?

- can you use a pup_save.2fs locally saved (say, in USB boot) to netboot the client and no longer use zdrv.sfs from the server? (this is using local storage to store the needed drivers)

Have fun!

EDIT: The URL of Barry's original post about humongous initrd.gz creation is gone, so here is the original page:

[BarryK]

Raffy and others, see this:
http://www.puppylinux.com/news/index.php?entry=entry070524-194516

[raffy]

Good news, net-booting works even if zdrv is not in initrd, provided that pup_save (previously saved in the client) is available in the client machine.

As to booting a 128-MB client, I had no success with a 58-MB initrd.gz (that expands to 62548 KB). The available RAM is 126 MB (as only 2 MB is left for the shared video).

What tweaks can we do to the booting process to maximize the use of available RAM (and enable booting of that 58-MB initrd.gz in a 128-MB machine)?

Btw, that 58-MB initrd.gz has no problem, as am using it now in a machine with 256 MB RAM.

Thanks!

In case it's needed, here's df output:

[raffy]

While this situation is outside the usual practice, an admin might one day want to enable use of pup_216.sfs in the client machine (perhaps he adds a last option in the server that says, "OK, load your own Puppy").

Here are the error messages and bootinit.log when doing this with the current init scripts:

[BarryK]

Raffy, if you want to do that, then why have network booting at all, why not just boot Puppy off the Flash drive?

[raffy]

Yes, right. I was just thinking that if a computer lab starts with a network-boot policy, this policy will stick. This could also be a way of ensuring that some important attributes are common in the whole lab, like Puppy version or a small added sfs, while allowing personal styles, such as in a remastering lesson.

I tend to think now beyond the standalone PC and of a whole Puppy lab (luv?) - hey, what a coincidence there! (Lobster must be smiling. )

[MrLars]

Hey,

i tryed to make the puppy 4.2 bootable over my network, but it cant find the .sfs file.

so i tryed to make an humongous initrd.gz, but without succes. when i do the last step, the ./makeext2initrd the machine hangs an i get errors that there is not enough diskspace.

im running the script on a live-cd version so when i reboot the logfiles are gone.

can someone point me in the right direction or be so kind and do it for me?